Finally, a full day of play came and went at the Lexus Ilkley Trophy on Wednesday, and there were wins for two/three Brits and narrow defeat for one more as the competition reached its midway point.

Kicking off the day on Centre Court was British qualifier Charles Broom, who was sharing the court with Italian Raul Brancaccio, who had won his first-round match indoors on Tuesday. As such, Charles, who had played and won three matches on the grass already this year compared to Brancaccio’s zero, adapted to the game far faster than the Italian, and after a tense couple of opening games, Broom opened up a double-break lead in the set, clinching it 6-1 after just half an hour.

The 25-year-old Brit raced into the second set, too, opening up a 4-1 lead and looking extremely comfortable serving for a 5-1 lead. However, all of a sudden, he wobbled, and served two double faults followed by a shanked forehand to offer three break points to Brancaccio. The Brit fired down three aces to save all three break points, but the damage was already done, and the last two points of the game went the way of the Italian. A slick and swift service game brought the score to 4-3, and Broom was once again under pressure to hold serve and inch closer to victory.

Shaking the poor service game at 4-1 from his mind, Broom returned to the solid service play he had offered in the first set, and held his nerve twice to secure a magnificent 6-1 6-4 victory and move into the quarter-finals, saving seven out of eight break points in a masterful mental performance.

British focus moved to Court 1 after Broom’s triumph, which saw 16-year-old Isabelle Lacy in second-round action against Spaniard Alina Bolsova. Lacy started brightly, fighting hard against the powerful strokes of the Spaniard and taking the first set 6-4, but Bolsova’s resilience shone through in the second set, with Lacy playing well in the big points but not quite managing to put them away as easily as she might have done on the junior tour that she is more used to playing. Bolsova hung tough in these points, constantly forcing Lacy to play another shot, and error began to sneak into the young Brits game – Bolsova took the second set 7-5.

It looked as if Lacy was going to secure a brilliant victory, as she moved into a 5-2 lead in the third set and had three match points on the Bolsova serve, but the Spaniard’s experience paid dividends and she saved all three, before clawing her way back into the match and heartbreakingly clinching the entire thing in a final-set tiebreak. Nevertheless, Lacy’s performance against a far more experienced player should be commended, and we’ll likely see her in action in Junior Wimbledon – if not senior Wimbledon qualifying – next week.

Centre Court hosted another Brit later in the afternoon – wildcard Sonay Kartal joined Charles Broom in the quarter-finals after a brilliant performance against France’s Elsa Jacquemot. Kartal came through a tight first set 7-5, at which point Jacquemot’s resistance seemed to be broken, and the second set was a breeze – 7-5 6-1 was the final score.

Finally, Anna Brogan was involved in the final singles match on Centre Court – she was playing her long-awaited first round match against American Katrina Scott. Brogan dropped the first set but fought back in the second to level the match, but the American qualifier proved too strong in the end, coming out with a 7-5 3-6 6-1 victory and leaving Kartal as the last remaining Brit in the Women’s Singles.

The doubles competitions got properly underway today as well, but it was generally bad news for Brits – Lacy and her doubles partner Mimi Xu lost, as did Lauren John-Baptiste and Lily Miyazaki. Emily Webley-Smith and her German partner Tamara Korpatsch also couldn’t find a way through to the second round, while in the Men’s draw, the two all-British pairings – Toby Samuel and Connor Thomson, and Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday – also lost.

This leaves just Madeleine Brooks and Holly Hutchinson, who beat fellow Brit Eden Silva and her Aussie partner Olivia Gadecki yesterday, as the sole British representatives left in the doubles events.